Kinda’ says it all doesn’t it?

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When it comes to home computers and the software that runs on them I’m not a developer I’m a user. A technically advanced user, yes but a user nonetheless. Same goes for software that runs in the so-called “Cloud”. It takes a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking to sit in front of a monitor and write line after line after line of code that I simply don’t have. Never could wrap my head around the concept of programming and I’m hardly alone in this respect.

Now this doesn’t mean I can’t track down a buggy piece of open source software to a certain line or lines of troublesome code–I can. What it means is I don’t have the knowledge nor the kind of experience (nor the inclination to get any) to be able correct the problem all by my lonesome.

So I head off to the appropriate forum and/or bug reporting site to find the answer or to report the problem in hopes that I will eventually find an answer. I have no problem making out a bug reports, participating in developer forums or helping out others who might be having a problem.

I’m fairly good at this and a whiz at Googling so I usually get along just fine.

So this is what I don’t understand: Why do the developers of Open Source Software even bother? I mean, what’s the point?

Simply put, open source software is software where the code that makes up that software (often called the “source”) is freely distributable. Anyone can download it, modify it to suit their needs, correct bugs, add features or even use it as a base to build their own version of the software. And there’s no cost associated with either using it or obtaining the source code.

The kicker is that the majority of developers of all this open source software do not get paid for their efforts ergo what’s the point?

Am I missing something here?

Take the current situation. I’m typing this post using TinyMCE which is a web based, javascript HTML/WYSIWYG editor–which is open source.

This TinyMCE editor is part of the WordPress install which runs my beloved old blog here. WordPress is open source.

I’m accessing all this using Mozilla’s Firefox–which is open source.

And all of this is taking place using the Ubuntu 9.10 desktop OS–which is also open source.

As I stated above, the majority of these developers (who range from all over the world) do not get paid. These folks are doing all this work, putting in their own time and effort to help build these programs and operating systems and they just give it all away at the end.

Every piece of software I mentioned above, relatively speaking, has only a handful or less of paid developers working behind the scenes on any one of these projects, say around 5 to 10 percent? That leaves around 90 to 95 percent of these developers, support people, testers, forum moderators, documentation writers, wiki maintainers and whoever else is contributing their time on any given project, working on a strictly voluntary basis.

And then they just give it all away? This is a business model? I’m amazed this stuff even exists let alone work as well as it does.

So what’s in it for all these non-paid individuals anyway?

Does it look good on their resumes? Does it give them a deep abiding sense of personal satisfaction? Does it help them in their chosen field? Do they do this just because it’s there? What?

Why am I able to sit here writing up this post using all this rather high quality free and open software that was developed by people who weren’t paid–that I didn’t have to pay for?

What’s the catch? Why does it even exist?

Perhaps I’m just too cynical but the world I live in there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The only thing I ever get without handing out a chunk of change is the junk mail I find in my mailbox every morning. And yet here I am munching happily away on a new post without having paid for anything except  hardware and hosting. And as far as the hardware’s concerned this computer I’m working on right now is 7 years old which, by today’s standards, makes it effectively worthless. Yet it’s fast, efficient, reliable and does everything I need it to do. And the operating system and all the software that’s running on it didn’t cost me a dime.

People developing quality software for no pay and then giving it away.

I just don’t get it.

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Sorry to disappoint you.

I just suddenly had the sudden urge, for no particular reason, to title a post; The Big The Fat The Ugly. I really can’t explain it other than the urge was not one I could ignore. But that’s what personal blogs are all about, right? Being able to post miscellaneous nonsense for no reason at all?

Or is that Twitter?

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This?

Or this?

About even I figure.

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It really hit me when I finished renewing this site for the fourth time. Okay, so the archives only go back as far as February of 2006 but that doesn’t count the posts I lost during my transitions between the old Blogger blog and doing-it-myself with a few month stop at Wordpress.com to catch my breath—moving the blog was tough in those days.

Then, four years ago apparently, I ended up here and have been posting ever since. Never did straighten out the links in the sidebar during all that time nor did I weed out the categories as much as I wanted to but the site has worked pretty well nonetheless, more or less.

I wandered into this blunderland of DIY WordPress blogging before there was anything like tags or threaded comments and the like. There were none of the must-have type plugins available back then like XML Sitemaps, Simple Tags, All-In-One-SEO or even Subscribe to Comments. The WordPress theme directory was a whole different site in those days then it disappeared altogether.

It was pretty much a mind boggling, code-your-own type of world that had a habit of scaring the living bejesus out of the beginner (remember the venerable Ultimate Tag Warrior?)

Over the years…

Over the years??!!? Man, now that’s a scary thought.

Over the years I’ve dragged this poor blog of mine through bogs of themes, swamps of plugins and the muck of occasionally plugged up databases. Past God knows how many version updates, database back ups and restorations, complete reinstalls and bouts of complete and utter apathy.

I’ve pushed it in front of me with the joy of finding out what lay around the next corner and dragged it behind me like some boat anchor chained around my neck secured with a padlock I didn’t have a key for.

I’ve swung from not being able to write fast enough to complete lack of interest and back again so many times I’ve lost count.

But I also made some very good friends along the way, most of which are still hanging around despite my lack of content over the past year. Okay, so it was a bugger of a year what with surgery and all that led up to it. And it’s taken a hell of a lot longer to recover from it than I first thought but people lose interest fast in these days of Carnation Instant Facebook and Folgers Freeze Dried Twitter. So I’m very thankful that those who I hold closest still have me plugged into their feed reader of choice.

I’ve been Stumbled a few times, Dugg once or twice and,at one time or another, earned all those badges of merit near the bottom of the sidebar. I even had the pleasure of helping a few folks in their own blogging endeavors while I was at it so all in all it’s been a pretty good run so far.

Looks like it’s too late to stop now what with 5 years waggling it’s ears and staring at me from around the next corner. Now that dealing with the back end of the blog is akin to climbing into my old Jeep Cherokee and going for a drive in the country, I can handle all the mechanics easier than I can write posts most times So it seems the only logical thing to do is continue on continuing on.

Even though I’m a rather illogical person at heart.

So here’s to blogging for fifth year. Hopefully these next twelve months won’t pass me by like the last twelve did. Too much going on and I really hate missing out on things.

So it’s not a great ending but it’s getting late and I need my cup of tea before I hit the sack.

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